Right or Left Brain, the Revolving Ballerina and my Art

This blog isn't for the faint hearted but stick with it and I hope it makes sense!!!

I have been interested in this right and left brain phenomenon for for some time. Why, having studied science and been interested in psychology have I then been drawn to art has always puzzled me. I should, according to all the research have a predominantly left sided brain the one connected with logic, language, reasoning, numbers and the right side responsible for more intuitive, creative, expressive, musical traits should be be the less dominant. Yet, whenever I take the tests you can access online to see where your leaning is I invariably present as more right brained. Has anyone checked the revolving ballerina?

Revolving Ballerina

So now I will share my theories. I believe that a lot of people have difficulty understanding all things scientific precisely because they do have left sided brains, the side responsible for logic reasoning, language etc and the reason for my thinking...... the scientific world and in particular the biological side of things is so fantastic and beyond comprehension that it defies logic and actually requires a vivid imagination to make any sense of it!!

Think of how a human actually develops........from 2 cells into a living,breathing, functioning, spirit housing individual. The complexity of how that happens and the visualisation at cellular and molecular level is more than most can contemplate and it is my belief that in my case it is my imagination that allows me to glimpse into understanding how life is possible.

I remember having my first son and genuinely being in awe of nature and if anything was a miracle he was it. When I came to have my second son I remember being so worried throughout....... doubting whether it was possible to create another such miracle, something so perfect could never happen again........... I simply couldn't believe that we could either be so lucky or that nature could work so well again yet for a second time there he was another perfect miracle!! To actually try and make sense of how these miracles can happen for me takes a lot more than basic scientific knowledge. Understanding how something so complex can develop from two cells full of DNA, the building blocks of life, is simply mind blowing.

Without going on too much further with this I also wonder just how much credibility these tests have.... they are pretty basic questions and while I appreciate the brain does have two different sides I think I also believe that most of us have a combination of both sides which we can switch on to whenever the situation presents. I find I am really quite a mix of both, am messy but can be methodical and organised, I remember faces rather than names, I am logical but also rely on my "gut" instinct, I think both in words and pictures and I have specific shapes for some things like the months of the year!!! I know "What is she on?" you must be asking!!!!

What I hope from this is that as I progress, I will start to access my right brain more and more as I try to become more creative and instinctive about my art..... I hope that by engaging that area, experimenting, playing and going with the flow, I will start to see more of how I want things to look, a process that has already started happening especially when working with colour... there is hope yet!!!!